


Codes and Choices

by Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: (and written vaguely enough it could be Legends or TFA-compliant! Your choice!), Complete, F/M, Fluff, One Shot, Post Battle of Endor, Romantic Fluff, Stand Alone, Sweet, Unplanned Pregnancy, it's about pg-13 with the sexy, just a fun little fluffy story for those who need it, leia always needs a little fluff in her life, post return of the jedi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 01:07:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16545875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome/pseuds/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome
Summary: After the Battle of Endor, Leia has struggled to find her place in a universe that sees her as both Vader's daughter and the Leader of the Rebellion. This, needless to say, has not been so great for her love life. Good thing Boba Fett just sees her as she is.However, Leia's got one more... family matter to tell him and it just might ruin this one good thing in her life.Pure fluff, romantic resolution, stands alone!





	Codes and Choices

Her thoughts were always racing these days. Circling, zipping around like those terrible pod-racers she'd seen on the holonet once. Just like those dangerous vehicles, Leia's thoughts too tended to crash and burn. Especially when she was kissing somone. Because now she'd accidentally licked his ear instead of sexily nibbling on it, and was going to have to hope that he didn't notice.

Leia knew she shouldn’t be thinking so much while she was kissing the very handsome bounty hunter currently occupying her bed. Kissing should be thought-clearing. An erotic meditation.

She giggled.

He paused. “Something amusing?”

“I was thinking about the Force. And sex. And…”

“Nevermind.” He shook his head, and wrapped a long braid of her hair around his hand, to tug her back toward him. “No more talking.”

That, she could agree on. She kissed him, deeply. Kissed down his body, marveling at all the muscles, noting all the scars. Glad to see no new ones. More glad to see evidence that he still desired her. She was so glad to see that desire, in fact, that she lingered, her fingers skimming over his thighs.

“You gonna…” he started, sitting up a little to see, and sounding as eager as a young man. It was an endearing thought, to remember that the terrifying Boba Fett had once been young and that he was innocent in bed enough to have a simple blowjob bring that youth back to him

“Thought you said no more talking.” She teased, before bending her head, giving him exactly what he’d hoped for. It was easy to do, to grant him this pleasure, especailly when his moans and his clever hands made sure she was enjoying it too. Time spent with him was the only enjoyment she had these days. Only in moments like this did she feel like she had a home, at least for an hour. A home built from their mutual pleasure, and made safe by all they didn't say. After, when he lay there, shivering slightly with the aftershocks of pleasure, she curled up next to him. “Do you want…” he began, his hand roaming over her hip.

She tried not to flinch, hoping he hadn’t noticed. That he hadn’t seen how different she was from the last time he’d seen her, months ago. She shook her head. “I’m tired.”

He kissed her, then, a simple, efficient sort of gesture. Not one that held any love, that she was sure of. They were just… comrades in pleasure. That was the best way to describe it. Two people who enjoyed each other’s bodies. Two people who were always alone, when they weren’t together.

Two people who were certainly not qualified to be called a family.

“I’ll pay my debt in the morning.” He yawned, but there was just a little glimmer of hunger in his eyes. Enough proof that Leia knew he’d be good on his word, as he always was.  If he said he’d come to see her, he always would.

Which was why she heard so rarely from him.

“You can wake me with it.” She teased back, before closing her eyes. “It will be a nice surprise.” In fact, it would be the last nice surprise they’d ever share. Because tomorrow she’d have to tell him. Tomorrow, she’d have to face how different her life would be.

Tomorrow, this little bit of happiness would be taken from her too.For once, she couldn’t blame Vader, or the Dark Side, or anything but her own foolishness. She let out a deep exhale, wrapped the blanket tighter around herself.

Not for the first time, Leia wondered what was wrong with her. She’d always worried, ever since she was a girl, that she was too different, too odd, compared to all the other children she knew. As she got older and took on more responsibility, she knew she was different. But then, while her parents had been alive, and she’d had a planet to call home, those differences had been marks of pride for her.

Then, everything had crumbled. Her home, her hopes, her future. Everything except the Rebellion, and since that was the only thing left, she gave it everything she had. That dedication too, made her different. Everyone commented on it. Every soldier, every spy, everyone knew that Leia Organa was different. That she wouldn’t sleep until the mission was over. That she’d always put the Alliance first. That she’d give, and give, and give because there wasn’t anything else she could do.

But after it was all over, when she had nothing left to give. When Vader was dead, and the Empire was crushed, and the war over, she was still different. Still had no place to call home.

Luke tried to get her to be a Jedi. Said that all Jedi were a little different than most people. But Luke wasn’t different, even though he couldn’t see it. Maybe he would someday. Maybe he’d see just how easily people loved him, how well he fit in.

Leia, on the other hand, wasn’t easy to love. Not at all. She’d heard it from Han, months ago. She knew it was true. She wasn’t easy to love, because she was different, and she was difficult, and she was demanding. She was a hundred things no other girl was. No other lover, even. Because no one else could be both the daughter of Vader and the princess of the rebellion. She carried both the blood of a monster and the hope of a galaxy... and now, she carried something else too. Something more mysterious, more powerful, and more terrfying, than any of those things.

And that didn't make any of this easier. No. She couldn't do easy. She was difficult.

So difficult, in fact, the only relationship she seemed able to maintain was one that involved maybe one nighttime visit a month, from a man who was the opposite of demanding. Boba Fett never asked for anything,  beyond what Leia offered. Hell. He didn’t even ask for caff in the morning. She’d had to train him to stay long enough to make him breakfast, or else she’d feel like he’d never been there at all.

As if the dirty dishes on her counter proved he hadn’t been a dream.

As if his kisses could prove she wasn’t so different after all.

Instead, his kisses, and, well, what those kisses had led to, proved something else entirely. That although Leia might feel like an old woman in her bones some mornings when she faced yet another round of snide comments or outright mistrust from people she’d once called comrades, she was quite young.

Young, and different and foolish.

It would have been so easy to have taken a preventative. So incredibly simple. For someone who slept with a blaster under her pillow, she’d not spent any time on any other protection plans. She’d just forgotten. Boba’s visits had been so infrequent, with her planning a new government, and him working in the shadowy corners of the galaxy that had never followed any one’s laws, that she’d forgotten.

Now, she paid the price.  Or, rather, she would. Once she stopped kissing him, long enough to tell him.  Maybe the conversation could wait, just a little longer. Just until…

 

* * *

 

Boba Fett hadn’t done much right in his life. Well, right according to whatever moral code a lot of people seemed to like saying they lived by, even though none of them ever truly followed it. He figured that by the bounty hunter’s code,  he was doing right enough. Maybe. It had been a long time since he’d read it, even longer since he’d recited the Mandalorian code of laws his father had used to whisper to him as a bedtime story.  But he'd done plenty that bounty hunters wouldn't have agreed with. Like letting Leia go on Bespin, years ago. Giving the bounty away to Bossak, who'd botched it horribly, and allowed that group of foolhardy little rebels to save the universe, or whatever it was they thought they'd accomplished by destroying the Empire.

Maybe it was better, he mused, staring up at the dark ceiling, to think of it as the fact he hadn’t done much good in his life. Good was less subjective. Good involved shit like saving children and brokering peace treaties. Good was killing Vader, a man who destroyed an entire planet for no reason. (Leia had told him that. Had cried, one night, when she'd had too much wine before he'd showed up, and had spent the rest of the night alternating between singing the national hymn of Alderean and crying. After that night, he'd always made sure to send her a message in the afternoon for his visits.) But good probably involved forgiving someone's father, for being a monster. (Leia had told him that too. He'd pretended he hadn't already known it from the gossip spread in seedy cantinas. But even the gossip hadn't told him how she couldn't forgive Vader, couldn't see the man under that black mask, even if she could care for a man under a Mandalorian one)

Good was difficult, complicated, messy. His way of dealing with life was usually none of those things. No. The only difficult, complicated thing in his life was the one sleeping on his arm currently.

She stirred, blinking up at him with those eyes that always expressed so much more than most people’s. “Boba…”

“I know, Leia.” They’d started to have the talk, halfway through their kissing. Of course, the kissing had been a lot easier than the talking, so they’d stuck with the easy thing.

“You… you do?” she blinked up at him, and he resisted the urge to kiss her for daring to look so tempting.

“Thermal scan on the helmet. Your bio pattern’s different now.”

She shivered. “I didn’t realize it would pick it up so…”

He raised an eyebrow. “Soon? Let’s not lie to each other. Pretty sure if I didn’t know, seeing you naked would—hey!”

She’d pinched his side, her hand ready to do it again. “Careful what you’re implying there, Boba Fett.”

Ahh, she’d pulled out the posh accent. That meant his comment had dug into her. A lthough he usually liked the way her feisty side would spring to life, that hadn’t been his intent. Not tonight. Not with such a life-changing, complicated thing looming between them. His hands reached for her, pulled her onto his lap, the blanket she’d hid under rolling away from her. He kissed her then, but slower than he had before. His hands dipped lower to cup full breasts. Her skin was so soft, softer than anything he could remember feeling. Especially here, on all this secret territory so few were ever allowed to touch. “These are fuller.” He commented, and before she could pinch him again, he ducked his head to kiss each warm nipple, though he couldn’t resist a little teasing nip at the end. That made her moan, her hands digging into his back.

“And this is softer,” his hands moved lower, to her belly, to caress gently. So gently. So terrified of what she carried, and yet, not willing to stop touching her either. “But they suit you. The changes.”

“Well. There’ll be lots more of those,” she said, with a morose tone he’d never heard from her. She sounded like she’d given up. That was bullshit. She was the heroic one. She couldn’t just give up.

“Good.” He found the word suddenly. “That’s good. I’ll… I’ll look forward to monitoring the progress.”

That made her burst out laughing. Her laughter, maybe more than anything, was the thing that showed how good she could be. How innocent. How joyful. Words he never had much reason to use, before her. “Monitor? Progress? Boba, am I a woman or a chart?”

He rolled his eyes. She locked her hands behind his head and pushed them down, so she pinned him to the bed. When he saw that smile finally back on her face, he knew he’d made his choice. The right choice for him. And his code, after all, was the only code he needed to follow. She was his choice. Even if it was going to be messy, and complicated, and a thousand other things he usually avoided. He didn’t want to avoid her. Not now. Not ever.

She brought so much good into a life that had always had so little of it.

 

* * *

 

Leia looked down at Boba, at the man she adored, against her own better judgment. The only man who could truly make her laugh these days, the only one who didn’t treat her like she was different, just for who she was. Vader’s daughter. Skywalker’s sister. Princess of Alderaan. The titles that she carried, in truth, scared her more than the life she carried did.

“How exactly are you going to monitor my progress? Hmm?” she nipped his neck, enjoying this opportunity to be playful, to dodge around the discussion neither wanted.

“Oh, come on, Leia.” He groaned. Sometimes, when she had him truly distracted, he drawled her name, a hint of an accent all but removed from his normal speech. It drove her more than a little wild. “Not like I’ve got much experience with…”

“Monitoring pregnant women?”

“Pregnancy.” He commented flatly, then, tapped his broad chest. “Clone.”

Oh. That was right. She’d utterly forgotten, in her own fears, her own concerns over the child’s bloodline. Did it make him uncomfortable? Had she said the wrong thing? No. This was Fett, after all. The one man that she could always speak plainly to because he always saw right through her politicking. So, instead of trying to smooth that over, she simply asked, “does that make you nervous?”

He shrugged. “I mean. You’re the one with the mom who died from it.”

“She died from heartbreak.”

“Didn’t know that was a medical condition.”

“It’s…” Not. It was not a medical thing, as far as she could tell, and she was more than a little pissed off at General Kenobi for recording such a thing. If she ever saw his ghost, she’d have words with him. Actually, she might have a lecture or two ready for him… which was probably why he stayed away. “It’s a Jedi thing.”

“Ah,” Boba said, as flatly as if he’d had his voice-modulating helmet on.

“Oh, I’ve botched this whole thing.” She got up suddenly, pulling away from him. The carpet was plush under her toes, but the air was cool. Her shivers set goosebumps down her back.

His hand came to rest on her shoulder. “Leia.”

He was standing right next to her. He’d followed her. For once, he’d followed her. It might have only been a few feet, but it felt like he’d crossed the galaxy for her. Up until now, she’d always chased him, sent him the messages, intercepted his plans. But somehow, tonight, he’d reached out to her. The one night she’d really, really needed him to. “It might not even be yours.”

“Solo’s?”

He didn’t look at her when he said it. But she could see his reflection in the mirror on the wall, in the hard set of lines around his face. It was clear he wished it could be any other name on her lips, but of course, it couldn’t be. Her relationship to Han, and to Boba, had been so complicated, ever since that night in Cloud City, where she’d kissed Boba, then escaped with Han.

Now, it was Boba she wanted as an escape. Wanted to curl up inside his arms, and hide from all the galaxy’s questions. When word got out that there would be a new Skywalker (since no one seemed to give the Organa name much consideration these days), a new heir to Vader, a new… chosen whatever, she’d never had a moment’s peace. Neither would her child. They’d always be different, the two of them. Always outside and apart. Never belong. Never with a place to call home.

She’d thought Boba might have become her home. If they’d had more time. If she hadn’t gotten drunk with Han on the anniversary of the Death Star Explosion. If, if, if.

“Don’t care.” Boba finally said.

“Don’t care about…” Oh. Stars. Was this when he said he didn’t care for her? That it was over?

“Don’t care whose it was.” He moved, then, to kiss her. “It’s mine. You’re mine.”

 

* * *

 

Boba couldn’t believe the words that had fallen out of his mouth, as hastily as a coward deployed an escape pod. But here he was, doing the opposite of escaping. He was charging toward duty, toward a destiny he’d never considered. His own father had considered a natural-born kid, what, a weakness? A liability? Too much of a hassle? It wasn’t like he’d ever had the chance to ask Jango what was so preferable about a lab-made clone.

But the way Leia smiled against his lips didn’t make him feel like a coward. The way she fit in his arms, even with her swelling belly, or maybe, especially so, that didn’t make him feel weak at all. She needed him.

Needed him the way he’d never needed anyone. But he found, he was all right with that. Because although he didn’t need much, he did have wants. Desires. Dreams.  Leia, for the past few years, had starred in all of those.  If anything, this was just one more bounty to collect. One more life to bring aboard the Slave I, one more reward he was seeking.  Instead of credits, though, he knew what price he’d want to be paid. It was as odd a price as it was an expensive one. Because Leia wouldn’t be the type to counterfeit it. Wouldn't lie. Not to him.

So, he held his breath, like this was a stand-off,  and they were both regarding each other with weapons drawn, instead of an embrace. Would they fight now? Shout? Do something dramatic like he'd seen couples do all across the galaxy when faced with a choice neither one planned on? It was always interesting guessing which partners would try to protect their lover from him, and which would gladly turn their so called beloved over to a bounty hunter for a few hundred credits. It was less interesting realizing that he'd be the fool to take a blaster bolt for Leia any day. When had that happened? When had she started to matter so much to him?

When had she become the one thing in all the universe that felt right to him?

Now she just looked up at him, with all that light in her eyes, when she said the words he’d wanted. The words he would have paid any price to hear. The words that hit just as damn hard as a blaster bolt. “I love you, Boba.”

He exhaled. Took another breath. Let it out. Counting the moments of the old life he had left. He’d already made his choice. Now, it was time to pay up. “Yeah.”  He kissed her forehead because he couldn’t say it himself. Not yet. Maybe not ever.  But he knew it was true, the words he couldn’t say back to her. “That’s good.”

And it was. It was so different, so foolish, so messy, and yet, so good. She was good. And she was his. All the other details, they could work out later.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little fluff! This can be seen as a sequel to AS SWEET AS STARBLOSSOM WINE, if you'd like! Comments are always appreciated. Thank you for reading.


End file.
